David Pratt in Ukraine: 'De-Russification' will do defenders no good in PR battle

In that time a lot has happened. When Russian tanks and troops rolled into the country on February 24 the Kremlin clearly expected the Ukrainian government to fall quickly. But it didn’t and Russia pulled back from its attempts to take Kyiv.

Anyone venturing out of the Ukrainian capital heading northwards cannot fail to be instantly reminded of how close invading Russian forces came to taking Kyiv.

Only the other day I was in the village of Moshchun which sits barely 19 miles from the capital. Few outside of Ukraine will have heard of this rural community which sits on the edge of a forest adjacent to the Irpin River.

READ MORE: David Pratt in Ukraine: Bucha won't forget atrocities – but knows life must go on

Even fewer perhaps will be aware that the battle that raged here back at the start of the war is viewed as perhaps the most crucial in preventing Russian forces from breaking through into the capital.

Put quite simply, a small number of Ukrainian troops of the now legendary 72 Brigade were ordered to hold their ground in Moshchun at all costs – and to the last man if necessary – to prevent a Russian advance that could have changed the course of the war.

My latest dispatch from Ukraine on how Bucha won't forget atrocities – but knows life must go on . https://t.co/tGyVTF9Z9A

— David Pratt (@foreigncorr1) August 17, 2022

In the event, though vastly outnumbered, they did hold their ground, drawing latter-day comparisons with the story of the 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae who fought a huge Persian army in 480 BC.

In some ways the battle of Moshchun has been the ongoing story of this war to date, one of plucky Ukrainians doggedly holding their ground against a massive Russian onslaught.

But things are changing on the ground here as Ukraine has taken the war to Russia, most lately with what many believe to have been attacks deep behind Russian lines in occupied Crimea.

Other than these long-range attacks though, much of the fighting in Ukraine is effectively now split into two theatres of operation. In the Donbas region in the east, much of which has been taken by the Russians, the struggle goes on to slow Russia’s advance.

In the south meanwhile, talk continues of a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake captured territory, especially around the city of Kherson. That Ukrainian offensive, should it happen, many analysts believe could prove a tipping point in the war.

Were Ukraine to succeed in taking back territory then the prevailing thinking in some quarters is that Russian President Vladimir Putin could come to see the cost of victory as too high and choose to strike a deal of sorts.

Not that his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy shows any signs of willingness on that front and must be acutely aware that it would be a hard sell to the people of his country who have sacrificed so much.

Most Ukrainians I speak with here worry too that their allies might themselves be weary of this war. To avoid such a mindset taking hold, Zelenskyy has been unrelenting in keeping intense pressure up on Moscow at every level.

From sanctions through to boycotts, travel restrictions to visa limitations, no stone has been left unturned in making life difficult for Russians. Fair enough you might say. Given that Ukraine’s back has been to the wall, it’s arguably only justified that it sees this struggle in terms of near total war.

But there are dangers too for Ukraine in such an all-out approach. Zelenskyy’s call on the west for example to ban all Russians from entering their respective countries has not gone down entirely well in some places.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for example is refusing to back growing calls for an EU-wide ban on giving tourist visas to Russians, even as some northern European countries act unilaterally to bring in their own visa restrictions.

Scholz of course is not exactly the favoured European leader among many Ukrainians who see him as being soft on Russia.

Personally, I find myself to some extent in agreement with the German chancellor’s recent remarks that “this is not the war of the Russian people. It is Putin’s war and we have to be very clear on that topic”.

That said, some countries like Finland and Estonia are in favour of a tourist visa ban arguing that while ordinary Russians didn’t start the war, they are supporting it. This chimes with Zelenskyy’s view that all Russians right now are to blame.

“The population picked this government and they’re not fighting it, not arguing with it, not shouting at it,” was how he summed it up in a recent interview with the Washington Post.

Given that Ukraine is fighting for its survival, Zelenskyy’s plea is understandable. But again, there are dangers here, whereby Ukraine could lose favour with some western allies by appearing intransigent in any efforts to start dialogue with Moscow.

At its worst some might even start accusing Ukraine of its own “extremism”, an argument never far from the lips of those who like to portray the country and its politicians as only one step away from a far-right state.

Already here in Ukraine it is now illegal to play Russian music in public or import large numbers of books from Russia and Belarus. Books published before the occupation however are exempted from the ban, but that hasn’t stopped some asking what comes next ask? Could it come about that classic Russian literature is banned from Ukrainian classrooms?

Already a Ukrainian Education Ministry working group has advised removing some 40 Russian or Soviet authors and poets – among them Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Mikhail Bulgakov – from school curricula.

It should be obvious that Ukraine must be careful in all of this in terms of its response. To date since the start of the war it has time and again displayed its unwavering commitment to democratic principles.

In the face of extreme Russian provocation, it has shown itself to be tolerant, pluralistic and open-minded for which rightfully it has won international plaudits. Now then is not the time to drop that global public relations baton it has carried so well by engaging in some kind of “de-Russification” programme.

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Angry as they are with Moscow, most ordinary Ukrainians I’ve spoken to since returning here, steadfastly refuse to blame all Russians for this war. They know who is responsible, who gives the orders and who is more than willing to carry them out. They know too that many of their Russian neighbours disapprove or oppose such actions.

Six months into this war Ukraine has boxed clever on the battlefield.

It must ensure it continues to do likewise on the diplomatic and international public relations front or run the risk of jeopardising the continuing support it deserves.